Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective Epilogue 9 (Sixth life: Tatiana Degtyaryov the witch)
🕑 Added 2024-09-16 14:13:04 +0000 UTCOne thing that Tanya never really expected, when they finally died as Gohan, was actually being conscious in the time between lives. While they were more-or-less as good of a telepath as there could be… they never really could manage the same level of self-editing that they could with psychic power or yin chakra.
When combining this fact with the fact that there was a solid chance that Gohan would end up in the local afterlife instead of being whisked away by Being X’s curse… they didn’t think it was worth the risk to suppress their memories this time. After all, they never really got the chance to try a life from the start without a boatload of trauma, so now was the ideal time.
Between lives, it was floating in a river, with uncountable trillions of souls flowing in eddies and currents. Everyone looked like a person sleeping, slowly turning younger as the waters of… they weren’t entirely sure what this place was called, but they’ll call it Lethe, washed away their experiences.
Tanya’s own soul was coated in a thin layer of gold, and their shape was already shedding the ravages of age and most distinct features, becoming a genderless being that, from the shape of their face, primarily held the features they kept in two different lives.
They spent some time swimming in the river, trying to guide their path as the river split into innumerable different directions, but they had no idea what was where, so they ended their journey with no more understanding of their place in the grand scheme of things than what they started with.
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One thing that they privately acknowledged was that they always were born to something resembling good circumstances. Sakura and Gohan both had parents, loving ones, and if it wasn’t for Mom-er, Miss Milla… well, that could have ended very nasty indeed. The point is, the hardest set of circumstances was the one that Being X had a direct hand in, and that could have been so much worse. They were well aware how bad things can get for children born under an unlucky star.
Looks like their luck ran out this time.
First horrible thing: her mother was extremely underaged. At first she thought it was just a case of intense malnourishment due to the next point, but no, Katerina Degtyaryov was a mere thirteen years old.
Second horrible thing: She was born in the Soviet Union. During the Cold War. It was due to collapse soon-ish, but that would require her to live long enough to reach it. That was questionable.
Third horrible thing: apparently, she was also the product of an encounter involving flunitrazepam, as her mother had absolutely zero memory of Tanya’s (or rather, Tatiana’s) father.
Fourth horrible thing: Her grandfather was extremely displeased about the previous point, particularly because he didn’t actually believe Katerina’s lack of memory. The only silver lining there is that without this disbelief, Tanya would likely not have learned that little factoid for years.
The good news was that she had some form of magic, and it could be bent to psychic ends. It was a little strange that she could only read the thoughts of people she made eye contact with, but at least organizing her own mind (which included erecting defenses against anyone else who tried to read her mind via eye contact) was something she could do without much issue.
At first, she tried to keep things copacetic, being the least troublesome infant it was possible to be, but… that didn’t work out. She had to act.
If there was one thing Tanya had to point to as a ‘good part’ of Communism, assuming that she had to say something accurate but nice at literal gunpoint, it would be the rigid denial of superstition and religion. This one point of agreement between her and the reds was naturally ruined by the fact that their ability to actually suppress this part of human nature was not particularly effective.
So she started talking early. Occasionally responding out of nowhere to a mysterious ‘Grandmother’. The legend of the Baba Yaga still held sway among the Russian peasantry, a maternal figure of witchery, something to be obeyed, and not something to be crossed.
It was a risk, certainly, but she was quite confident that she wouldn’t last to her first birthday without doing something to change her circumstances. She occasionally relayed warnings from ‘Grandmother’ when her woefully uneducated mother was about to make a mistake, such as adding a poisonous part of an otherwise safe to eat plant to dinner, or when she thought cutting away mold was a sufficient safeguard for bread.
Her ‘grandfather’ was the poor Russian town’s only doctor, so she had plenty of time to expose her strangeness to the rest of the population. She gave helpful bits of medical advice to those that were waiting, which were always things she was one hundred percent certain of. The image of ‘Grandmother’s’ infallibility was paramount.
After the first month of doing this, she figured out enough about her new magic to use it to heal minor injuries, literally ‘kissing them better’.
Eventually, the old doctor decided that enough was enough, and attempted to murder her. Fortunately, he had waited long enough to do so that she was able to defend herself, focusing her killing intent to the utmost and making the man drop dead with a flash of green light. The only explanation that was forthcoming from her lips was that ‘grandmother got angry’, which cemented her status as ‘not to be fucked with’.
Naturally, this left the town without a doctor, so while the central planners of the Soviet Union find a new one to send over, the only source of medical advice for dozens of kilometers was a medical library controlled by a fourteen year old girl, her one year old infant, and the mercurial moods of the Baba Yaga.
This was a stable enough arrangement that it lasted for about eight years (all without a new doctor) before stories of ‘the little witch’ drew attention from people who were inclined to act on it. About twenty people wearing thick robes teleported into the town square with the crackle of gunfire and immediately started subduing everyone with what she could intuitively recognize as a non-lethal subdual spell of some kind.
Tanya remained hidden to watch them work, and she was reasonably certain they had noticed her; one of their number was idling, doing nothing, but was positioned to clearly respond to anything she did. Nevertheless, she was outnumbered, and these wand-waving secret police were almost definitely competent enough that she could kill maybe three of them, tops, before she was taken down.
Once all of the citizenry were subdued and telekinetically put in one place, they started extracting silvery blobs from their ears, working in two-man teams. One held the blob at the tip of their wand, and the other examined it by doing something with their wand. Then, they put the blobs back. After conferring with each other, they seemed to come to a decision and started using a specific spell, ‘Obliviate’ on each and every one of the civilians before carting them back to, presumably, where they were originally.
She tried to decipher what they were doing, and it seemed… they were doing something to the mind, clearly… ah. Of course. What else would wand-waving secret police be doing? They were magically altering the memories of the citizenry. To what end? Well, given the fact that she was untouched as of yet, but still carefully not-watched by that one… they must be here for her.
Finally, she managed to meet one of their gazes. It was only for an instant, but from that she was able to glean one coherent thought: “Okay, Statute of Secrecy upheld, now to take the little witch back home.”
Shortly after catching that thought, the woman who thought it called out in Tanya’s direction. “We know you’re there! Come out little girl, we’ll take you somewhere warm! With plenty of food!”
The sad part was, that was incredibly tempting. Her and Katerina had more food and coal than most in this soviet hellscape, but that wasn’t saying much.
Well… she didn’t see any point in resisting. How to approach this… Ah. “...Do you have pancakes?” It was the most delicious thing she had tasted in this life. It was important to keep her story straight.
“I’ll make you up a full stack of pancakes!” The woman offered kindly. “With real maple syrup!” Naturally, the communist citizens couldn’t have real maple syrup. Even the fake stuff was contraband, honestly.
Tanya crawled out of the attic window (well, it wasn’t really a window… not important) she was watching them from, jumping off the roof and magically slowing her fall. The woman panicked for a moment, but the stern-looking man who seemed to be in charge signaled for her to halt her reflexive wand movement, letting Tanya catch herself. “Impressive.” The man commented. “Tatiana Degtyaryov, I presume?” He had made eye contact, but her attempt to read his mind skittered off of his mental defenses. He frowned, so he detected it, but refrained from acting on that knowledge immediately.
Crap. Well, if he’s going to pretend she didn’t just try to read his mind, she’ll do the same. Tanya nodded. “Call me Tanya!” She insisted. She had no objection to being called by a completely different name, but being called by a similar name would be infuriating. “Can I have pancakes now?”
The woman secret police came closer and picked Tanya up, placing the small girl on her hip as she readied her wand. “Now, apparation feels very strange the first time, but trust me: it’s safe.”
As it turned out, teleportation in this universe felt a little bit like getting squeezed through a tiny hole. Ow.
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As she had surmised from the ‘Statute of Secrecy’ thing she caught from her mind-reading, while the world as a whole was as she had expected from her memories of her original timeline, it also included a secret under-society of witches and wizards, whose population was tiny enough that their education was handled by eleven schools, worldwide.
The Durmstrang Institute was the one that covered this half of Russia, in addition to most of Eastern Europe. It was located in northern Scandivania, and took students from as far south as Bulgaria, as the Greeks had their own school which covered every nation that had a chunk of the eastern mediterranean coastline, with Italy being the western border of that school district. Rome having their magic school be in Greece made a suspicious amount of sense…
Anyway, there was a magical artifact, a book, that was enchanted to write the names of everyone born with magic as they are born, and they are to be retrieved in time for them to be properly educated.
Well, or killed to keep the secret. ‘Muggle-born’ usually were, and that would ordinarily be her fate… but her horrific circumstances at birth apparently did have an upside: the reason her ‘father’ had left no memories of his presence is because he was a wizard, and used magic to wipe those memories clean. After raping a twelve year old girl.
Now normally this would be insufficient to spare her life, but apparently Lord Serebyrakov, the pedophile that she had already sworn to murder despite the familiar name, had recently lost his daughter Viktoriya (because of course that’s her name), who was promised to marry someone influential, and was thus in the market for a replacement. Legitimizing a bastard, even a “half-blood” one, was now something palatable as an alternative to that agreement falling short.
These things were not told to Tanya, of course. They were slowly extracted and pieced together with small snippets of mind-reading, or legitimacy as it was called here, over the three months where she was hastily prepared to enter as a first year student, mere days after her tenth birthday.
The good news was that, in an attempt to strangle the economic development of muggle-borns, people who were “raised by muggles”, which was separate from being “muggle-born”, could not marry or own magical property under the Council of Ten’s aegis (another term that roused her suspicions) without graduating from an accredited magical school. She assumed this limit was to make things difficult for progressives to cultivate connections to the muggle world into their families, further isolating the magical community from the mundane. So she had a full seven years before she had to take action on that front.
So it was time for her favorite part of a new life: School!
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Magical society, despite being geographically distributed over a wide area, was surprisingly small. This was because of the Floo Network, a series of fireplace-based teleportation enchantments, so hundreds of kilometers could be crossed in a single fiery leap. As such, the economic center of magical Eastern Europe was Vertic Alley. It was a shopping district, with a bank, taverns, eateries, and enough stores to provide anything a witch or wizard needs.
Like a wand. There were three wand stores, each artisanal works that were meant to serve a particular witch or wizard their entire lives. The one patronized by Lord Serebyrakov was run by the most famous one: Mr. Gregorovitch.
The wand-maker was old, his hair was white with age and he had a thick, bushy beard. Above the counter, there was a blue bird; she couldn’t identify it, but it might have been a magical subspecies anyway. “Abra Kadabra.” The bird declared, although as it was merely a bird it could be forgiven for its shoddy pronunciation.
“Shush.” Gregorovitch scolded the bird before turning to the dead man walking. “Lord Serebyrakov, you’re a bit early for your appointment, but my last one didn’t take very long at all, so we can begin.” He waved his hand, causing a series of tape measures to start taking her measurements, and a quill to start writing down the numbers on a spare piece of parchment. Now that was some interesting magic. The front door of the store also closed and audibly locked.
Hm… he seemed to be concentrating on the effort, so it clearly wasn’t some kind of fire-and-forget magical program… Was the length of her pinky really an important measurement? Interesting.
After about a minute of measuring, he moved his hand away and looked over the figures. “I’ll have these sent to the tailor.” He added offhandedly, sending the parchment to a waiting owl that had a small satchel. “Standard school uniform order?” He asked Lord Serebyrakov, who nodded. “Dorogaya, to Miss Eklund, please.” The owl, whose name translated to ‘Sweetie’, flew out through the window. “Now, for your wand. From your measurements and lineage, I suspect… this will be a good pick. Cedar, ten inches, unicorn hair, inflexible.” The wand in question floated to his hand from the boxes available, and was presented.
Tanya picked up the wand, and… knew it wasn’t correct. Gregorovitch agreed, immediately taking it from her. “Hm, a tricky one.” He commented, “Was any of it correct?” He thought for a moment to himself. “If any of it was, it’s the length.” After another moment, he brought out a second one. “Let’s try the birth wood. Holly, ten inches, dragon heartstring, supple.”
This wand… didn’t feel instantly wrong like the other one did. “Give it a wave.” Gregorovich instructed, gesturing to a blank wall.
“Abra Kadabra.” The blue parrot repeated, slurring the words in the exact same way.
“Hush.”
Tanya waved the wand at the stone wall, and a literal arrow of flame shot out and impacted the wall, creating a dent that was scorched black. “We’re getting somewhere.” Gregorovitch said, taking the wand away. “-but we’re not there yet.”
After three more attempts, Lord Serebyrakov lost his patience. “What is taking so long.” He asked dangerously.
“There is something I’m missing about this girl.” Gregorovitch replied, “Something I’m missing.”
“The thestral hair core seemed promising.” Tanya offered, “It felt the most responsive.”
After a few moments, Gregorovitch seemed to remember something, and he didn’t like it. “I do have… one more thestral hair wand.” He walked to the back, and opened his safe. “This… it was an attempt to… well, never you mind. Elder wood, eleven inches, thestral tail hair core. Bends easily without breaking.” He even bent it ninety degrees to demonstrate. “Give it a try.”
“Abra Kadabra.” The parrot repeated.
“Will you shut up!” Gregorovitch shouted, putting his wand down for some reason. “Or I’ll ‘Abra Kadabra’ you!” He even imitated the accent of the bird when saying it. He then picked his wand back up.
Wait… “Is that an actual spell?” Tanya asked.
“Tch.” Gregorovitch winced. “Yes. The bird’s old owner, my mother, God rest her soul, was killed by it when she was… well, the late seventies was hard on everyone, even if the whole nonsense was supposed to stay in England.”
“What kind of parrot is that?” Tanya asked, “It’s got beautiful plumage.”
“That’s a Norwegian Blue. It’s magical, but the blasted thing’s broken. Won’t say anything else.” The wand-maker grumbled.
“What’s it supposed to do?” She asked.
“The Norwegian Blue Parrot is strong, fast, and can verbally relay messages. Handles cold and darkness very well, too.” He replied, somewhat glad to not talk about his mysterious wand. “You need a special cage. If you don’t it’ll muscle its way out of those bars, and… voom.”
“Voom?” Tanya asked.
“Voom.” Gregorovitch confirmed.
“I still can’t believe that Abra Kadabra is a real spell.” Tanya said, drifting back on topic.
“You said it wrong.” Lord Serebyrakov said, irritated. “It’s Avada Kedavra.” He said, repeating the parrot’s slurring of it. Ah, she was just misunderstanding.
“Ah.” Tanya looked at the wand in her hand and decided to give it a try. “Avada Kedavra.” She said, sending a bolt of very familiar green light down range to the stone wall, where it splashed uselessly. As she said the words, she felt her killing intent focus and send down the wood, much more easily than she did those years ago. So that’s useful… She better make sure to never hit anyone with it that she wasn’t willing to kill. Easy enough.
Both of the men, normally very pale normally just from living so far north, turned chalk-white. “...What?” She asked innocently.
Another person opened up the locked door, looking rather annoyed. “An unforgivable curse was detected on the premises.” He announced.
“Avada Kedavra.” Said the parrot.
The policeman, for who else would come in and say that, sighed after taking a moment to take in the scene. “I told you after the last time that parrot got reported, Gregorovitch. One of these days a stupid kid was going to successfully cast it if you let that parrot live.”
“She hit the wall.” Gregorovitch said, “No one’s dead.”
The policeman took a good look at Lord Serebyrakov. He held out his hand. Lord Serebyrakov deposited a small bag of presumably money. “I take the bird away and we forget this ever happened, so I never have to come here again. Deal?”
“Deal.” Gregorovitch said immediately.
The police officer raised his wand, knocked out the bird, and took the cage away, the bird sleeping on its back on the bottom of it. Stunned, but most of the people outside probably thought it was stone dead.
Still, the wand was good, so they paid and moved on.
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The Durmstrang institute was… well, when you got past the glitz and glamor of so much magical architecture it was just a school, and she had seen plenty of that with Beerus, Zeno, and their angel attendants.
The rules were very thorough, reminding her more of boot camp than any school she had ever attended, and time was very regimented and parceled out.
Still, she spent most of her time in her favorite place: the library. After lifetimes of manipulating exotic energies, wand-waving was easy. After decades of pharmaceutical compounding experience, potions were only somewhat more difficult. And the academic subjects? Simplicity itself. It left plenty of time for her to read everything she could find.
Years passed without notable incident… at least, an incident that bothered her. The Lady Serebyrakov ably took control of everything after Lord Serebyrakov’s unsolved murder, and as the money for Tanya’s tuition was already spent, the Lady saw no reason to discontinue it.
Well, to be more precise the Lady saw reason, and thus did not discontinue it. Particularly because she had a suspiciously blank memory on the events leading up to her husband’s murder, so was suspect number one. Alas, Tanya’s plan to seize total control over the estate pending her graduation failed and the Lady was not found guilty.
It was fine, though. While Tanya wouldn’t have lost any sleep over the woman’s demise, as she knew about her husband’s actions and condoned them on the basis of ‘they were only muggles’, she was also not involved enough for Tanya to further risk herself removing her.
In the sixth year of her schooling, however, things started to change. Headmaster Karkaroff announced that twelve hand-picked students will be participating in a special program, which will substantially alter their education and provide an opportunity that hasn’t been available in centuries.
Naturally, Tanya wanted it. It was a little tricky to identify the likely candidates and winnow down their numbers with scandals and manipulating them to reject the honor until she was sure to be picked, but she managed something similar to get herself the ‘von’ particle with way less experience so she managed it with aplomb.
Surprisingly, one of the other students who were not likely to be picked, one Victor Krum, had approached her and asked for some academic help. He was quite good at the local sport, Quidditch, and he wasn’t bad at magic, but his bookwork was shoddy.
She always did like teaching, though, so she helped him despite herself. Fortunately, after Karkaroff called her to his office and told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was already on the list and she should stop sabotaging her competition, she was able to help the poor jock to the best of her ability. She also made up for her previous actions to a few of the ones she sabotaged, the two who weren’t horrible people.
So it was off to the mysterious event.
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The mysterious event was something called the ‘Tri-wizard tournament’, which was an ancient competition between Durmstang, the british school Hogwarts, and the western european Beauxbatons. Even in magical Europe, the British get left apart from everyone else. Heh.
Anyway, the practice was discontinued because of too many deaths, but enough important people wanted to revive it and thus it was so. The prize? One thousand British Galleons. A princely sum, although not so great that it would set one for life.
As seed money for a business, though? Perfect for her needs. She rather enjoyed the variety and power that potions provided in this world, and had already decided to follow through with that as her planned career.
So Hogwarts, the school hosting the tournament, was warmer than Durmstrang; it would have to be. It seemed a bit dingier, although that may have more to do with the dreary Scottish weather more than anything else. More importantly, it was far less strict than Durmstrang, so Tanya felt it was a bit of a step up.
Despite this change, it still had a marvelous library, so she made herself at home there. Victor joined her, even!
But shortly before the impartial selection artifact (are they sure it’s not just random?) made its decision, Victor confronted her. “You… do not like me.” He said.
Hm? Tanya looked him in the eye and pilfered his meaning from his surface thoughts. “Ah. No, I’m not interested in anyone romantically. Please, by all means, go to the other bookish girl and start flirting.” She waved him off in the direction of the girl in question. “I do still consider you a friend, though. Don’t be a stranger.”
Later, when they were on the way to supper, she made sure to tell him: “She seems a little guarded, take it slow.”
Victor nodded seriously. “Do you think I should invite her to the ball?” He asked, as usual being direct and to the point. “I was going to ask you, but…”
“That should be enough time for her to take it seriously, if you keep up with having her help you study instead of me.” Tanya replied, “I’ll be sure to take her aside and encourage her after you do.”
“Who will you ask?” He asked curiously.
Tanya frowned. Ah, she would be expected to attend with a date, wouldn’t she? “...Maybe I’ll ask out that celebrity? He reminds me a bit of an old friend.” When Razputin was being serious and polite… Mr. Potter reminded her of him. “Or perhaps I’ll dance with one of the teachers or ghosts.” That brooding potions teacher, while his hygiene was atrocious, did kind of remind her of Sasuke… “Do you think Professor Dumbledore would take it in good humor?”
“I’m not touching that.”
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Under the assumption that the people using the magical goblet of champion selections knew what they were talking about, she fully expected to win. Not once had she ever stepped forward like this and failed to get picked, after all. Although… there was that time with Babadi’s ship… and that time with the moon lady…
Before she could properly finish enumerating the times that her attempt at taking the spotlight was foiled, the fiery cup spat out her name. “As expected.” She said calmly before walking to the designated area.
The local celebrity slash chosen hero was for some reason picked as a fourth champion, but she really didn’t care. “Look, I’ll settle this.” She said to cut past the crap. “Okay Harry, look me in the eye and answer this: Did you enter the contest intentionally?”
“No.” He said firmly. His surface thoughts revealed further information.
Ah. “He tried, but couldn’t get past the age line.” Tanya announced, “Someone else rigged the goblet.”
“You know, legimacy isn’t legal evidence.” Dumbledore pointed out.
“Except that entering the tournament isn’t a crime, and more importantly if he can’t just drop out, as you’ve already explained, he’s stuck competing whether he did or not.” Tanya retorted, “So Hogwarts managed a good cheat. Big whoop. Their extra champion is by far the least qualified of us all, so even if he somehow comes out with a win, we should all be ashamed of ourselves for losing to someone with such a severe disadvantage.”
Her words, spoken confidently, seemed to have set neurons firing in the collected adults, and things moved on.
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The first task involved stealing from a dragon, who in this world were just exceptionally dangerous lizards. Not very smart. She used a beast-speech charm, allowing her to communicate with the animal, and tricked it into removing the fake egg by convincing it that it was a cuckoo dragon, containing something that will kill her children if it hatches, eating them up while fooling the mother into providing for it. Her score wasn’t great due to her slow speed, but she didn’t incur any penalties.
The second task was an underwater retrieval: simplicity itself with her modified air bubble charm, allowing her to jump from rock to rock as if the water wasn’t there.
The final task was a maze. Tricky, particularly as one of the obstacles was the defense against the dark arts teacher wielding forbidden mind control curses, but when she touched the final prize… She was teleported to a graveyard.
Someone attempted to kill her, but she killed him first with a silent and lightning fast killing curse, and also killed the malevolent homunculus he had with him.
Then she died, outnumbered by the twenty or so wizards that proceeded to bombard her with spells until she got hit by one, then killed her with the very same curse she accidentally used so long ago.
Ah well, can’t expect to grow old every time.
Comments
0xFFF1
If she manages it, she'll be better than a planeswalker because they are merely sorcerers that luck into their special magic and don't even understand how it works. No, Tanya will have a wizard's understanding of surviving and traveling the Blind Eternities/Primordial Chaos/etc, and therefore be that much more potent because of it.
Eldar ortell
Just because some one noticed it does not mean they'd coment on it, I just commented on it because I'm much like the parrot, norwegian and dead☠️
Kevin Curry
No one even noticed the one I put in Swordsman's adventure. Had to be less subtle.
Eldar ortell
A monthly Python refrence!? In your favorite Tanya/Harry Potter crossover!? More likely than you think
Kevin Curry
Exactly! I was worried that this one wouldn't be well received, but I'm glad that was unfounded.
Hex
ha! I liked that one. Definitely felt abrupt with only one chapter, but it works. Walks in, messes up the harry potter cannon, refuses to elaborate, dies.
Alita
Awesome
Christopher Overbeck
Alas. Will Tanya figure out the unified theory of multiverse magic systems and become a planeswalker?
Jonathan Shaw
This was great 👍.
